a carefully researched scoop on news not usually available on any other media channel or in many cases noted before it appears in conventional media from an insiders perspective. The views are that of the author and are not guided by any other person or organization. A truly unique and independent opinion of SRI LANKA TODAY

Friday, November 20, 2015

I find this an outrageous statement – People in the Private Sector are still not paying enough tax to keep pace with the salary increments paid to state works.

Get a life. They are mutually exclusive
and NOT related. Yes, the private businessmen in Sri Lanka pay a very low
proportion of their income in taxes. It is very easy to find who, and collect
taxes, as pointed out in numerous papers by the Central Bank, where a unique
number is attached to a person, (NI is OK) to record all purchases and sales,
to know who they are, and then see how their purchases of trips or product
above a minimum value (say Rs100,000) are financed. The reason this is NOT
done, is that the lawmakers are the biggest tax dodgers. Most of whom have even
pocketed some of the funds received for their election campaigns.

As a separate issue, the huge cost of
public sector pay and pensions will drag this economy down for the next 50
years, UNLESS some drastic action is taken immediately.

The article says that in 2016, the
salaries and perks of state workers could top Rs700B is such a preposterous
figure, when much of it does not help the economy in ANY WAY.

The first exercise is to look at who is
on that list, and why that person is paid that, even if it is a pension, and
estimate whether the Country can afford that payment. Then the first step is to
try and get some productivity out of that payment if it is wasted. This can be
done by re training in fields that are desperately needed, such as the Mental
Health Sector which is grossly underfunded and understaffed!

A re allocation of resources in the
State Sector as suggested in many of my blog entries will help the economy both
grow, preserve our resources, natural and renewable, and reduce waste. On
immediate need as I have mentioned before is using he Armed Forces to guard and
preserve some of the 250,000 sights of archeological value, that are currently
not only pen to the elements, they are also open to treasure hunters with new
ground scanning technology.

So let us look at the most effective and
fair means of raising revenue for the Govt. whilst at the same time trying to
ensure that the money spent on public sector wages is used productively to
assist the public in more ways than one where the word “Servant” of the State and
Public is front and center!